


a light to burn all the empires [ryden]

by softcerise



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M, Mild Language, Ryden, ummm... lots of running and hormones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7554328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softcerise/pseuds/softcerise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Spencer, I fucking hate you.” Ryan hisses as the worker drops the pack over his shoulders; he stumbles under the heavy straps. Spencer wanders over with the pack already strapped to his chest, grinning unapologetically, and Ryan really <em>does</em> hate him. They are seventeen and having a party at <em>Laser Game,</em> for one, as opposed to sneaking into clubs and celebrating with sweat and alcohol and moving bodies-- what Ryan <em>wants</em> to be doing for Spencer’s birthday, what anyone their age would accept as a decent party. And secondly, the only person Ryan knows here other than Spencer is Pete, and honestly, Ryan doesn’t really <em>want</em> to know Pete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a light to burn all the empires [ryden]

**Author's Note:**

> a laser game au.

“Spencer, I fucking hate you.” Ryan hisses as the worker drops the pack over his shoulders; he stumbles under the heavy straps. Spencer wanders over with the pack already strapped to his chest, grinning unapologetically, and Ryan really _does_ hate him. They are seventeen and having a party at _Laser Game,_ for one, as opposed to sneaking into clubs and celebrating with sweat and alcohol and moving bodies-- what Ryan _wants_ to be doing for Spencer’s birthday, what anyone their age would accept as a decent party. And secondly, the only person Ryan knows here other than Spencer is Pete, and honestly, Ryan doesn’t really _want_ to know Pete.

Spencer reaches out and lifts one of the straps experimentally before letting it fall back down, and Ryan’s knees buckle slightly. “No, you don’t. The last time you played Laser Tag, you loved it. So. Shut up.” 

“I was twelve,” Ryan says sourly and hefts the gun attached to his pack higher up. Spencer laughs and pulls him along, away from the equipment room where a hassled looking man is lugging the packs off a hanger and handing them to the last of the players (Spencer has invited about a dozen people, who adjust their packs in varying degrees of excitement before following him-- a tall guy with long hair runs his hands over the front like he’s fascinated, a tiny man in a trucker hat sways on his feet), and into the tiny room beside it. A screen stares down from above a black door, displaying a rotating model of the pack currently weighing Ryan down like a sack of bricks, and the bulky laser gun he now holds awkwardly in his hand. 

“Okay.” The worker hurries into the room, points up to the screen. “Welcome to Laser Tag. For those who haven’t played before, the rules are pretty simple: there’s two teams, red and blue, and to get points you have to shoot the other team in either the shoulder straps, back or chest-- the places where the lights are.” He fiddles with a switch, and the packs on everyone’s torso light up-- Ryan looks down, sees the blue glow coming from the square on his chest. Spencer’s back is blue as well, he notes with relief, and he assesses the other players, who murmur as they also check out their teammates-- not that it does a lot of good, because he doesn’t know most of them and it’s unlikely they know him either; Spencer has picked up quite a few different friends from different places. The man continues.

“When you get shot, your light goes off for about twenty seconds, during which you can’t be hit again, but also can’t shoot. You _can_ lose points from being hit by your own teammates, and also by some traps set in various places in the maze. Taking off your pack during the game is forbidden. Whoever has the most points by the end of the games-- forty minutes, by the way, and we have two rounds with a break in between-- wins. The exit door has a sign, in case someone has to leave. The game starts when the music starts.” He opens the door, and Ryan catches sight of flashing lights and black walls and stairs and _woah,_ memories. “We have all your names logged onto our computers, so you can actually check the statistics later.”

“Uh-- Spencer’s team, you go first.” He checks his paper, opens the door wider and steps out of the way, and Spencer hops through, followed by about six people pulsing azure.

The maze is eerily silent, but Ryan knows that as soon as the red team joins, the whole two floors will come alive with music-- pop or techno, probably Lady Gaga or something-- he can’t remember exactly, but he knows that it’s the kind that spikes your energy and makes you want to laugh and run, and yeah, that was nice. The rush of adrenaline was always enjoyable.

They stand in front of a staircase, the slats painted black along with everything else, dotted with specks of green and red light that travel over the floor, the walls. When Spencer turns to beckon them under the steps and down a hall, his teeth and the whites of his eyes blind him and Ryan is grateful to have worn the dark blue shirt today. In fact, his whole team has decided to be smart and wear relatively dark clothes-- even the purple hoodie belonging to one of them (a tall guy who _towers_ over everyone) seems to be dark enough to avoid shining like a beacon.

Spencer’s footsteps echo as he leads them down halls, through doorways, past nooks and crannies that Ryan remembers being small enough to crawl in when he was younger. He wonders if he still can-- he’s narrow enough, just maybe too tall. “Okay, let’s start quick--” Spencer says, turning his head to face them. “we spread out, okay, and remember that staircase, because there’s a little box-thing near there where you can hide in and see everything going on. And the steady red lights in some of the corners, don’t let them stay on you too long, because those are the traps the guy was talking about. And also. There’s smoke. Later on, and it distorts stuff and it's cool.” Spencer may be a little hyper, blue eyes glowing with both happiness and the lights that wash over everything-- Ryan deducts that they must be the harmless ones, because they’re mixed with green and move around too much, flash, drawing attention to every surface. “Questions?”

“Um?” One of them steps forward, a buff dude with a voice that completely contradicts his appearance. “I don’t know anyone’s names.” 

Spencer mumbles a quick, _“oh, yeah”,_ bobs up and down. “Right. Right, okay. You all know me. I’m Spencer.” He points to the guy next to him, who waves pleasantly. He looks like a logical, decent person (Ryan can tell immediately) and has a nice smile and brown hair and some scruff, and Ryan decides he likes him. “This is Jon.” It’s probably a good thing Ryan likes him, because he has a vague prediction he’ll be around for a while-- Spencer looks a little bit in love. 

“Gabe.” Above the purple hoodie, there is dark hair and sparkling, liquid-charcoal eyes that meet Ryan’s impassive face, and he thinks that’s the one who purred a greeting in his ear when they entered the building. The smirk sent his way confirms it. 

Spencer introduces Ryan, who tips his head, then goes on to Andy, the one who asked for names, and Pete-- oh. Fantastic, they have Pete on their team. Pete sidles right up to Ryan’s side, presses close against his shoulder between a layer of solid plastic, and Ryan gives Spencer a _look._

“On the other team,” Spencer adds as an afterthought, “you’ve got Patrick-- he’s the one in the hat, and Brendon, um, you’ll see, he’s kind of bright-- and Joe’s hair is poofy, William will probably grope you instead of shoot you, I doubt we’ll actually see Gerard and Frank is. Frank is very short.” He claps his hands with finality and then looks startled, because oh _fuck,_ suddenly there’s a rush of sound and a low, auto-tuned female voice starts to hum through the speakers. “Fuck. Fuck, split up.”

Before Ryan can get his skinny ass in motion, his team has disappeared each down a doorway or up the hall, and Pete has tugged him in the other direction. Ryan trips, twists his ankle and staggers into another hall, and this looks a bit like the staircase they started out in front of-- yep, that’s the exit sign-- where’s the red team? Did they already start moving? Pete whips around, teeth glimmering and Ryan thinks that if he even makes one move towards him, Ryan will kick him in the crotch. 

\---

“So,” Pete whispers loudly once they reach the staircase again after a few minutes. “Who do we go after?”

“I don’t know.” They’ve been circling the ground floor for “knowledge on the field”, as Pete claims, even though Ryan’s been here before, and he remembers passing a doorway with dozens of panels behind it, set at meter-wide intervals and tall enough to hide behind. He wonders if he could lose Pete there. “I don’t know anyone.”

Pete hums and checks under the staircase, and there’s an empty, enclosed area that looks to be about big enough for three people, if they crouch-- the one Spencer had mentioned. The stairs draw shadows over the entrance and the inside, so it’s pretty well hidden. Pete swings his gun and ducks into it. 

Ryan hesitates-- the game has just started and he doesn’t want to begin it by cowering in some little hide-out, but the sound of shoes on the flimsy wooden floor suddenly resonates throughout the place, matching the _thump-thump_ of the music overhead, and he thinks, _fuck, already?_ before pulling himself after Pete.

There is a curved passage a few meters away from the bottom of the staircase, and through a slit in the panel Ryan can see a figure glowing red emerge. The man straightens as best he can from within the heavy plastic enveloping his small frame, then reaches up and adjusts the hat settled on ginger-blond hair, and Ryan grasps for a name-- _the one with the hat,_ Spencer had said-- and feels Pete stiffen beside him, sees his jaw drop from the corner of his eye.

He doesn’t look around, just steps amongst the green and red and makes his way to the opposite wall, where a ramp leads to a lower level (Ryan remembers there being three-- the ground floor, the one below, and the top one, which was basically several wide strips lining the walls that look over the center of the ground floor). Pete is staying still, and Ryan still has his grip on the gun but Pete is half sitting on it, and he frowns as the man disappears from view.

“Wow,” Pete mumbles as Ryan rises and glares at him.

“Why didn’t you shoot?” Ryan demands, dislodging the gun from under Pete’s knee and pressing on the trigger experimentally. A narrow, red pinpoint of light appears on the wooden floor.

Pete shrugs, rearranges his expression of awe into one of indifference. “Because then we would have been exposed. And yeah, twenty seconds of him not being able to return fire, but then what?” 

Ryan huffs and narrows his eyes. “Well. Fine.” Maybe Pete can be logical when he wants to be.

He crawls out of the alcove and shakes brown hair our of his eyes. “How about we go different ways? You can go after hat-guy-- um, Spencer said he was Patrick? Right? I don’t know. But you can go find him. I’m going to the second floor.”

Ryan doesn’t bother seeing if Pete has listened, because even if the guy could be reasonable at times, he doesn’t want to be stuck with him for over half an hour. He sprints up the steps, planks dipping beneath his feet, and turns right.

The top floor has always been his favorite. He remembers when he was twelve, he and Spencer and this one friend named Brent would always be on the same team and while Spencer was great at using the smoke machines on the ground floor to his advantage and Brent knew the basement area like the back of his hand, Ryan could figure out how to navigate the top floor like nobody else. He could sneak past every protruding balcony without anyone on it catching sight of him, he could dodge the traps in the corners every time. As his feet steer him down the hall and to the first terrace, he thinks that even though he may not _want_ to be here, he may as well make the best of it. He used to be good at Laser Tag, he could totally beat everyone’s ass.

With that thought in mind, he veers to the edge of the hallway, where the boards don’t creak quite as much, and looks back at his memories of the top floor. He’s on the right side, he knows, and there are at least three balconies-- then at the first turn, there’s a bridge that connects the two slices of maze-- a narrow, straight wooden platform with a concerningly flimsy looking railings, and the left side consists of one confusing rectangle of twists and turns and doorways and plenty of ambush spots. He’s positive that he can’t be the only one on this floor, so he’s wary as he approaches the first terrace.

And bursts into laughter. 

Because he doesn’t even have to be close to see how the black light causes this guy’s vivid pink hoodie to flare up, blazing pale and prominent in the midnight. It’s even brighter than the red on his back and shoulders; the boy is basically a ridiculous combo of skinny jeans that blend into the jet black surroundings and rosy brilliance from the sweater, the pack over it, the flaming red glasses in stark contrast to dark hair, black or shaded brown-- he can’t tell in the darkness. The pulsing vocals and electronic beat isn’t enough to drown out Ryan’s spurt of giggles, and the boy whirls around from where he’s leaning against the balcony railing, gun resting against the edge.

“I. Dude, your _hoodie,_ ” is the first thing Ryan manages, taunting grin growing wide on his face. “Are you _trying to be easy bait?”_

“No,” the guy says defensively. “I--”

“The bright one.” Ryan snaps his fingers. “You’re Brendon, aren’t you? Jesus _fuck_ , Spencer was right, you shine from a mile away, are you _sure_ you want to be wearing that?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

Brendon’s face has been getting progressively darker as Ryan mocks him, so he simply raises his gun and sends a thin channel of light directly at Ryan’s chest. The blue flickers out. So does Ryan’s smile.

“You _asshole,_ ” Ryan breathes out as he stares incredulously at the square on his chest, now gray. It’s Brendon’s turn to smirk, shining superiority and all, and as much as the sudden, teasing quirk of his lips makes him pretty fucking attractive, actually, the switch deep in Ryan’s brain that is labelled “bitchy rage” has just been flipped on at full force and there’s no time for admiring the way that fucking smile enhances each feature of his face. There is, as the label says, only bitchy rage.

“I don’t know.” Brendon sighs. “For someone who _‘shines from a mile away’_ , it would have been pretty easy to hit me.” He waves his gun; the laser splays over the wall in lazy streaks. “And yet, I’m not the one whose team just lost one point.” And then he sidesteps Ryan’s rigid frame and runs off the way Ryan came.

Ryan waits twenty seconds for the blue to reappear, and then kicks the wall so hard he bruises his toe.

\---

On the basement floor, Pete nuzzles into Patrick’s shoulder as Brendon and Joe watch them dubiously.

“I found him a few minutes ago. He’s on the blue team, but, and I quote, “pledged allegiance to my muffin face and adorable sideburns”, then proved it by shooting himself with his own gun twice in a row. Should we keep him?”

“Why not?” Joe ponders. “But tell him not to shoot himself, that’s not fair on our part.”

Patrick nods and pries Pete off his side. Pete sighs happily, “you’re much cuter than Ryan. And you’re _nice._ ”

Brendon perks up. “Ryan? Is he the one on the blue team, skinny, brown hair, kind of a bitch?”

Pete nods, and Brendon starts to grin.

\--- 

Ryan is furious. It’s exactly 17 minutes into the game when Andy meets him in the corner of the ground floor with news that Pete shot him, acknowledged it, and is now trailing after Patrick like a lost _(lovestruck)_ puppy. Jon and Spencer are doing okay, getting some points via ambush (the smoke machines haven’t come on yet-- they usually do for the last ten minutes or so, when teams are desperate for points and things get heated), but mostly being adorable and cuddly under the staircase. 

“So Pete’s a traitor and basically watches Patrick’s back, since Patrick has terrible aim, from what I’ve seen-- Joe’s an okay player, so is Frank, and there’s Brendon who’s also not bad. A little conspicuous, though. There’s also William, he’s pretty tall-- almost _Gabe_ tall, and he’s kind of good too.” Andy recounts. “I think we’ll have to ask Spencer on what to do.”

Ryan’s lips twist into a scowl. Although he’s met Joe and Frank in the past few minutes and spotted William before, he hadn’t crossed paths with Brendon yet, and his ego was still stinging from their last encounter. “Sure.”

Spencer is closer than they thought, and they find him and Jon in one area near the smoke machine, tucked behind one of the barriers with his fingers intertwined with Jon’s and a happy, blissful look on his face. The look barely even fades when Andy relays the situation to him. Jon nudges him and suggests, “we can get rid of William.”

Ryan arches an eyebrow. “How can we do that?”

Spencer’s been chewing on his lip, but his face lights up. “Gabe.”

\---

“Seduce him?” Gabe repeats when Ryan confronts him, casually leaning against one of the wide panels that separate the room into a mess of corners and cubbies. “Yeah, I think I could do that.”

\---

“William’s out of the picture,” Ryan murmurs to Andy when they pass in the hall. The adrenaline that comes with the excitement the game brings is starting to rise, making his eyes shine brighter, his heart beat faster and in seemingly in sync with the music that fills the air thickly with tension and desire to run, to laugh, to win. 

“Good,” Andy grins back as Ryan runs past him. 

There’s about 15 minutes left in the first round, then Ryan knows that there’ll be a short break in which they’ll get juice or something (Spencer is such a _child_ ), then they’ll go back into the maze. But now, he’s just seen a flash of red light and the possibilities flashed through his head-- Frank, Brendon, Gerard, maybe-- and then his light goes out.

Ryan bares his teeth. It’s not the first time he’s been hit in this round; aside from Brendon, he’s been hit by both Frank and Joe, Spencer once (he wasn’t being careful) and one of the traps. He turns around, head slanting right and then left, and sees a faint red hue coming from a gap in the wall. He blinks and the light is gone, replaced by the constant, thin red and green ones that zip by, but he circles around anyway. He turns a corner and notices a small opening made to look as unobtrusive as possible-- there’s a screen behind it that matches the black of everything else, and when he slides into the narrow passage and sees the glow again, his features relax into a satisfied smirk.

He thinks that the man watching him approach must be Gerard, because he hasn’t seen him before in the maze yet. Gerard has stringy black hair and looks bored, and his gun hangs limply to the side.

Ryan says, “hi,” and raises his own gun, presses down on the trigger, and, and nothing. 

Gerard cracks a smile as Ryan catches sight of his own dull, gray chest and hears a familiar, obnoxious laugh, and then Gerard is forgotten and Ryan pirouettes on his heel to see Brendon blocking the entrance, gun in hand and the sleeves of his hoodie luminous. That grin is back on his face, and Ryan takes one threatening step forward. Gerard can’t shoot him-- and even if he could, Ryan couldn’t care less, because there is _Brendon_ with his dumb fucking face and ability to make Ryan vehemently speechless, and Ryan has something to prove.

Brendon backs out when Ryan starts to run, and then they’re both flying down the passageways, Brendon’s hoodie guiding Ryan between panels and down curving ramps and over blocks, and Ryan’s hands are slipping over his gun, his feet thudding against every platform, the electronic beats shaking his mind, his heart, making his whole body seem to _vibrate_ , and _this_ is what he felt and loved when he was younger, just maybe with a little less _bitchy rage_.

Ryan is starting to gain. His pack has activated again, but he can’t grip his gun in a firm enough hold to actually aim, and even if he could, Brendon is moving too fast as he leaps up the steep ramp that leads to the ground floor, turning sharply around the staircase and to the open area in the middle-- by open, it means that instead of hallways, there are just more meter-wide boards that Brendon swerves around with Ryan hot on his heels. Anyone on an upstairs balcony could shoot him, but they sprint past and Brendon races into the next section, and of course that’s when the low hiss escapes the walls and smoke slowly starts to seep in. 

Ryan curses as smoky tendrils grab at his shoulder straps, slowly filling up the room until the red and green sparks seem to glide over the layer of steam easily, as if it was solid. It billows around them, but thank god Brendon is wearing that hoodie, because it lets Ryan spurt forward, see Brendon shift so that he’s looking back at Ryan and he’s still _smiling_ , and something boiling and angry and _wanting_ fills Ryan’s gut. Ryan dives forward and crashes into his body; he and Brendon fall to the floor in a mess of tangled limbs and clashing packs, leaving imprints of blue and red against the fog where they were connected in the air. 

Brendon’s head flies back as his back hits the ground and he grunts in pain, the plastic pack digging into his skin. Ryan lands on top and almost collapses as the weight of the pack catches up to him. Both guns skid to the side, connected to the packs but just out of reach. 

“Huh.” Ryan pants softly, sprawled on top of Brendon with his palms pressed against his pack. The red hurts his eyes a little, and his eyes slide to the gun off to his right with no actual energy to lean over and take it. He lets his head dip forward, curls falling over his cheeks; Brendon freezes underneath him as strands brush his forehead, but Ryan can’t bring himself to care as he takes some deep breaths, fills his lungs with oxygen and coughs when some smoke trails down his throat too.

It feels like Brendon’s heart is slamming against his ribcage, little _ba-thumps_ against Ryan’s fingertips-- or it could be the music that fills Ryan’s ears, thick and numbing. He inhales once more, exhales into Brendon’s neck, ignoring the way Brendon lies stiff and awkward. Smoke sits heavy in the atmosphere around them, and Ryan feels the burning _runlaughwin_ go down, only to replaced with the sudden shock and the _ohfuckshit_ as he realizes that he is straddling Brendon. 

“You need to get off of me.” Brendon says, low and throaty. His fingers are inches away from his gun but they remain still, and Ryan wonders why until he actually starts to register, _why is Brendon so stiff?_ And then, _oh._

The vicious grin spreads on Ryan’s face, and experimentally, he shifts, watching the way Brendon’s jaw is painfully set. Laughing, he twists a little and lets his hands roam up the smooth top of the pack and to Brendon’s biceps, allows two long fingers to skim over the side of his neck. _Ba-thump, ba-thump--_ Brendon is still motionless, mouth frozen in another protest-- and only then does Ryan calmly reach for his gun.

Brendon only starts to writhe when Ryan straightens up and scoots himself into a position so that he’s sitting on Brendon’s thighs with one hand still resting on the plastic and smiles innocently down at Brendon’s wide eyes-- the pupils are blown, cancelling out the soft brown and leaving two glossy black discs that reflect the smoke, the shards of red and green that continue to play across the room-- and presses the nozzle of the gun onto one of Brendon’s lit-up shoulder straps, and with one silent squeeze of the trigger Brendon goes dim underneath him. Ryan laughs gleefully and rolls off, hearing Brendon scramble to his feet a little too late-- he yells after him, his voice slightly uneven, “that totally wasn’t allowed,” but Ryan doesn’t care. He jogs out of the smoke and down one of the hallways, and lets the satisfied smirk take over.

\---

When the music stops, Ryan meets everyone as they amble towards the exit with their all lights off and guns pointing down. Brendon glares at him and Ryan smiles back, and as the man from before helps them unclip the packs from their chests, Ryan hears Brendon at his ear, “we have another round. That’s another forty minutes, and in those forty minutes I assure you that I can make you my bitch.”

“We’ll see.” Ryan scoffs and looks around the room. Spencer beams as he hooks his pinkie around Jon’s, the scene offensively cute-- he trots around the room and officially introduces people, Saporta, Hurley, Ross, Beckett, _Urie_ \-- Ryan records the name for later.

Patrick sighs in relief as he takes off the pack while Pete hovers at his shoulder and sends mildly guilty, _“what can you do_ ” looks at everyone from the blue team. Gabe looks slightly out of breath, and he’s watching William sip from a water bottle with swollen lips. Andy and Joe grab water bottles of their own with friendly grins, and are soon joined by Frank and then Gerard, who salutes Ryan dryly-- judging by the confused looks on the other members of the blue team as they spot him, Gerard has been keeping out of sight for the duration of this round.

Ryan practically feels Brendon’s fierce smile. “Yeah. We’ll see.”

\---

When Ryan steps back into the maze, not only is the pack’s weight now familiar on his shoulders, it doesn’t take too long for him to slip back into the haze of excitement and adrenaline, but a pink hoodie lies in a defeated heap next to the door, and Ryan flashes his teeth in a feral kind of smile.

On the second round, it’s always more intense, with players flying left and right (except for William and Gabe, who sneak off into a cubbyhole somewhere) and even more smoke, even faster music, even brighter lights that blanket everyone and everything.

Barely five minutes pass when his light goes out. He furrows his eyebrows, looks left, right and then up, and Brendon is leaning against the upper balcony with his gun propped against the railing.

“Gotcha. That’s one more,” He sings, backing away until he hits the beginning of the hallway and then turning away without a second glance. Ryan doesn’t say anything but his face burns behind his now-messy brown fringe, and he knows that even if he sprints, he won’t be able to catch Brendon before he disappears somewhere. He stomps back the way he came and decides that if Brendon wasn’t his target before, he is Ryan’s top priority now.

He still shoots Patrick and then Joe (but purposefully sends his laser skimming over Pete’s ruffled black hair) as he jogs around the perimeter of the first floor, and sends a nod to Andy when he comes trotting down the stairs. Squinting up the staircase, he wonders how long it’ll take for another confrontation. 

\---

Ten minutes. Not until Ryan’s heavily anticipated confrontation, but for him to just get beyond frustrated at the lack of contact. He paces around the balcony where Brendon had shot him prior, sweeps the bottom floor and then looks sharply across from him, where a small square window could hide someone, but there isn’t a sign of anyone other than the occasional rhythm of boots on the floors beneath him. The bass line of the music somehow spikes his irritation, and he spins and presses his hand to the balcony railing and yells, “god _fucking_ dammit, Urie! Where the actual _hell_ are you?”

A laugh sounds from somewhere underneath him, but it’s faint and sounds more like Spencer than anyone else. Ryan stands and fumes for a few seconds, and then the reply comes, light with barely suppressed laughter and just surprisingly close. 

“What? You wanna sit on my crotch again?” Ryan’s jaw drops as his head snaps to the left, where some amused murmurs follow Brendon’s shout. 

“That was _not_ \-- I didn’t-- oh, don’t be a dick just because you don’t want to admit you liked it.” Brendon’s laughter fades as Ryan starts to trace the sounds, eyes fixed on the corner of the bridge. If he’s correct, Brendon is on the other side of it.

“What?” Ryan recognizes Patrick’s confused voice, slightly muffled. Brendon replies, “don’t mind him. He’s just bitter. Probably horny, too. Can’t get enough of my hips. Or my ass.”

Ryan lets out an indignant whine and heads for the passage, but Brendon’s voice is already starting to move away. “Fuck you, Urie. _And_ your ass.” 

“You wish you could fuck my ass,” Brendon replies cheekily as Ryan storms over the bridge to another empty corridor of lights and black slats and _nothing_ , and against his will the memory of Brendon leaping over obstacles as they race through the maze pops up in his mind, the boy’s pack hitching up as his legs scramble over a block-- and yeah. There was, um. Ryan fights away the image of jean material tight against skin and grips at his hair in exasperation. 

\---

Brendon and Ryan continue to exchange easy insults and curses as they dance around each other in the expanses of the maze, until Ryan hears Spencer groan from somewhere near, “jesus _christ,_ you two, either shut up or go make out somewhere in peace,” and Ryan shuts up. Not out of any respect for Spencer, but because they have less than ten minutes to go and the closest he’s gotten to Brendon is when they glare at each other from the top floor (“Ross, are you wearing _eyeliner?_ I think you’re taking this oh-so-dark Laser Tag thing too far--” “Shut the hell up, I usually wear it--”), so he and Brendon are kind of at a stalemate. Brendon has shot Ryan once, twice, three times, but Ryan fucking sat on him and distracted him enough to shoot him and that cancels out all three points, in his view anyway. He shuts up because he has too little time to draw ahead, and he shuts up because Brendon is intent on not meeting him face to face and Ryan is getting sick of it.

He doesn’t answer Spencer, only turns brusquely in the narrow, empty hall and massages the stiff fingers of his right hand against his pant leg while his gun hangs at his side. Ryan doesn’t often sweat, and if he does it’s not that much, but his fingers have been cramped at the trigger of his laser gun for ages and the frustration mixed with the running up and down and everywhere has caused his cheeks to redden and the back of his neck to become damp. At least, he thinks with another small sense of victory, he’s not Brendon. During the halftime break, he had practically been _dripping_ with sweat-- cheeks and neck glistening, dark hair falling into smoldering eyes, and, wait. Fuck.

With every loaded comment he and Brendon throw at each other, the sexual tension rises and Ryan insists on batting it away, because he is pissed, and this is his pride on the line (kind of, not really, but still) and he won’t just. Let Brendon take it away with his dumb hoodie and bright grin--

_Thump._

It’s out of nowhere. Ryan hadn’t heard him, sensed him, _anything,_ and now he’s suddenly being pressed against the wall with fingers splayed firmly around one wrist, pinning it to the boards next to his ear while nails scratch lightly at the other one, forbidding him from making a grab at his gun-- and he knows that his eyes are wide, mouth slack, as he stands face-to-face with Brendon Urie.

“What--” He begins, his heart suddenly lunging up his throat at the sight of dark eyes, red and green lights that dance across cheekbones and over the planes of his face, full lips that are parted just fractionally enough so as to send warm air to mingle in the place between their noses. He expects Brendon’s hand to reach down, jab his gun into Ryan’s pack and squeeze and _run,_ laughing hysterically because he really did get him _good,_ this time. But instead, Brendon ignores the heavy objects that knock against their legs as he nudges one thigh between Ryan’s and impatiently crushes his mouth to his.

Saying that Ryan is shocked would be an understatement. Saying that Ryan is a little bit more than aroused would also be an understatement, because as Brendon nips persistently at Ryan’s lips and clasps at his wrists and rubs himself carelessly over Ryan’s hips, Ryan feels all the cluelessness fade away until it’s just petty anger and lust, and Ryan has a _lot_ of petty anger to channel. 

Ryan opens up at the same time Brendon pulls away, dissatisfied with Ryan’s lack of response, but Ryan rips his wrists away from Brendon and tangles his fingers in his disheveled hair instead, drawing him closer, and kisses back hard-- it’s sloppy and charged with tension; their noses bump and Brendon tastes like sweat and heat and there is more teeth than Ryan is accustomed to, but he has never been more desperate. Brendon’s tongue sweeps hot and heavy into Ryan’s mouth and he presses closer, _winds_ himself around Ryan and makes sure that there is no air between them-- no easy feat, as the packs they wear are awkward and bulky and uncomfortable-- as they gasp, the sound too piercing, too dirty, too _out of place_ in the constant music that continues to shake the floor.

Brendon breaks away again, this time to lower his burning mouth to Ryan’s jaw, pressing an open-mouthed kiss there. Ryan forces himself to loosen his grip on Brendon’s hair, but his mind is kind of occupied (spinning, swirling and thrown upside-down) and he just melts against Brendon’s lips and chest and his fingers are at Ryan’s sharp hips now, digging bruises against the stripe of exposed skin where Ryan’s shirt wrinkles up. Ryan lets his head fall back, eyes shutting tight and then opening again, the green and red and black of his surroundings blending together. Brendon licks a stripe down Ryan’s neck, teeth gliding over his throat and then he bites down hard on his collarbone, and Ryan can’t _think._

He can’t _think_ and so he doesn’t notice when his shirt slides back down, the heat of Brendon’s hand disappearing from where it was creeping up smooth skin. He doesn’t notice how Brendon smiles savage into the crook of his neck, biting and licking over the mark again and again with a determined mixture of desire and something _else._ He doesn’t notice the jerky movement of Brendon reaching for his gun, of the hallway becoming just a little _dimmer_ with the absence of one light.

He _does_ notice, and of course he does, he _has_ to-- when Brendon pries Ryan’s hands away and takes an unsteady step back, lips pink and swollen and gorgeous and cheeks flushed a same shade, hair sticking up in unnatural directions where Ryan’s fingers had bunched around it, his teeth showing in a sort of self-satisfied smile. 

Ryan stares incredulously and is unable to say a single word as Brendon whispers through labored breathing, “I win.”

Ryan only looks down when Brendon’s back has disappeared from view, and he is startled to see that he is still _wearing_ the pack, much less that it has gone gray. He staggers against the wall, feeling the imprint of Brendon’s legs intertwined with his, feels the throb of the bruise forming above his collar. And only then does his (equally) reddened mouth fall open in realization that Brendon really _has_ won.

But Ryan knows that he didn’t imagine the hungry, yearning look in Brendon’s eyes as he walked away, and while he may not have the upper hand in the _game_ any more, he does have an advantage with something else, for sure. And honestly, after the chaotic end of the first round, was it even about the game anymore? 

\---

“And the winners are… the blue team!”

Andy whoops and Jon and Spencer exchange high-fives, and nobody really seems to be _upset_ about anything. Ryan had walked in (so they at least won that part) and dumped his pack onto the first available surface and found at least a _bit_ of triumph in the way Brendon’s gaze immediately fell to the bruise (which Ryan made no effort to hide).

Patrick stares and says, “what _happened?_ ”

Ryan answers, smooth and easy. “I don’t know. Ask Brendon.” Their eyes meet in another clash of tension; Brendon slides his arms through the sleeves of his hoodie and says nonchalantly, “I think I like Laser Tag. Who here has a birthday coming up?”

Ryan feels all things bitchy leave him, and he smiles, not snarky or seductive or anything of the sort. Just his regular, appreciative smile, and Brendon retaliates with one that is just as wide like it has made his day. 

He knows that he has not seen the last of Brendon. The knowledge sends a happy, _light, jump-bump-skip_ to his heart.

_End._


End file.
